How Can We Preserve Military Knowledge and Experience?

2013-11-23T12:34:31-05:00

As senior service members transition to the retired rolls, how can we secure their years of knowledge and experience instead of simply letting it all fade away?

Response by SFC James Baber made Dec 13 at 2013 9:20 AM

2013-12-13T09:20:33-05:00

By hiring them on to fill those civilian positions that are still related to training and policy, TRADOC has thousands of positions that remain empty yearly due to budgeting constraints, I know for a fact many retirees would work the civilian equivalent of their former ranks mainly for the same pay and benefits that they had prior to retirement and wouldn't have to worry about deployments. And another plus to that is if a SM needed to deploy the civilian counterpart would already be a well trained, maybe even more than the SM replacement for the job in the unit/installation while the SM is deployed. It would also reduce the unemployment rate of veterans and retirees by thousands as well.

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 13 at 2013 10:20 AM

2013-12-13T10:20:17-05:00

Right now senior NCO's tend to not relate to the lower enlisted they tend to congregate together or with officers from what I have seen. I know some of the reasons are commonality a 40 year old + senior enlisted doesn't have a lot in common with a 25 year old SGT or SPC. If the senior enlisted personnel became more available, instead of someone your not supposed to talk to except through your NCO chain everyone might be able to absorb some of that experience and knowledge.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 13 at 2013 10:43 AM

2013-12-13T10:43:59-05:00

I think this is a professional development question. It's my personal opinion that if you, as a Sr NCO, are doing your job then your knowledge won't be lost for the future Leaders of the Army. Taking care of our Soldiers isn't only helping to resolve issues. Part of taking care of them is ensuring that they are equipped to succeed and to help them ensure progression through the ranks. If we are not taking the time to impart our personal knowledge as well as doctrinal regurgitation, we are doing a disservice to them, ourselves, and the Army in general. Teaching doctrine to our Soldiers is what provides the base of knowledge that we all grow from. Our personal experience and knowledge is the food that actually fosters that growth and ensures good professional development of our Jr Leaders. As the Leaders of today's Army, we have a duty to the Nation, to the Army and to our Soldiers to ensure that our future military remains the powerhouse that we are today.

If we go to the field, conduct an exercise and return to garrison just to put our equipment in the connex and go back to "normal" life we're screwing it up. I've got to admit that I used to be a proponent of this method. I grew and learned though. I discovered the hard way that we can't just go out and go through the motions. We must identify our short-comings and work through bringing those things up to standard. This not only gives us the opportunity to fix our issues, but also to develop our Jr Leaders in problem solving, identifying issues, training Soldiers, developing sound training plans and ensuring that mission success is the outcome when we deploy to do what we do.

I said all of that to say this: the short answer is training the right way is the key to ensuring our knowledge survives us.

Response by SFC John Kraft made Feb 18 at 2016 12:11 AM

2016-02-18T00:11:40-05:00

Well for starters when I was still in on active duty the E-8 promotion list came out and during three times in a roll the Army was only promoting Minorities. For me being a white NCO along with alot of other white NCOs and alot of white Officers as well got screwed out of getting promoted and alot of us just got tired of waiting around and we just retired and went on our way. That was alot of military knowledge and experience that I believe the Army just let go because the Army had to meet a quota in promoting minorities. This is unjust and unfair to everyone and also alot of your senior NCOs with that combat experience was either let go or they just retired because no promotion was going to happen anytime soon. It always has been to where the last group of soldiers who been to war would train the new guys and all in order to survive in combat and how to eliminate the enemy, but alot of senior NCOs once again with that combat experience from Desert Storm war was gone now and there really was no one left to train the young soildiers on how to survive and what to do in a war time situation, and that my friend is why I believe alot of our soldiers died starting in 2003 war on Iraq all the way up till now. It is like the invisible law for officers to have that Ranger Tab, and it is that use to be where past presidents had that military experience as in being in a war in order to know how and when to deploy the military during time of threats, but that to went out the window for some odd reason.
I can only say for like myself, I trained all my soldiers to the best of my ability in all aspect of being a killing machine come war time, and hopefully they retained the training that got from me.

Response by CPT Brett Patron made Aug 20 at 2020 5:18 PM

2020-08-20T17:18:20-04:00

Consider: I do not think you can preserve "knowledge". Knowledge is derived from information and context, applied against specific circumstances.

What one CAN preserve are the stories of how experienced professionals addressed encounters and situations, and the lessons they derived. How one applies these collected experiences is how "knowledge" is proliferated.